Paramount Records

One name for many fans of the pre war blues music that was spawned in the Mississippi Delta before moving to Memphis and Chicago that resonates loudly is Paramount Records. The label began life in 1916, founded by the New York Recording Laboratory of Port Washington, Wisconsin. The company was a subsidiary of the Wisconsin Chair Company, who made not just chairs but also other furniture including cabinets for phonographs. The idea behind Paramount Records was that they should give away recordings as an inducement to buy their phonograph cabinets. It was not the first label to start releasing records under the banner 'Race records', that honour goes to OKeh, who coined the name ‘race’ series to describe records made by Black artists for sale to what was almost exclusively a Black audience.



Paramount began releasing records by Black artists in 1922, a year after OKeh. They appointed Mayo Williams, a black college graduate, as talent scout and he immediately signed a number of 'Classic Blues singers' and soon Paramount was releasing records by Alberta Hunter, Ida Cox and May Rainey.

Williams wanted to find a male singer and went to Maxwell Street in Chicago where he came across Papa Charlie Jackson and his 6-string banjo, busking on a street corner. Jackson was taken into the studio and his success led to the company looking for other male talent and it was not long before Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Blake began recording for the label.

Paramount used ‘field scouts’ to seek out new talent, although this was a somewhat grand name for men like H.C. Speir who ran hardware and grocery stores across the Southern States, they were also the stores that sold records.  These men kept their eye out for locals who could play and it was through Speir that Paramount recorded Tommy Johnson, Ishman Bracey and most important of all, Charley Patton.

In 1930 Patton took Son House, Willie Brown and Louise Johnson to Grafton to record in the company’s new studios.
Paramount unlike most of its rivals did not undertake field recording trips, they preferred their artists to come to Chicago (until it closed in 1929) and New York (which closed around 1926) and then Grafton.

Paramount had a number of subsidiary labels that it used to issue existing recordings with pseudonyms – it was kind of recycling the Blues. Amongst them were National and Broadway. The Herwin Brothers in St Louis 'leased' Paramount recordings to issue on their Herwin label.



During its 10 years in business Paramount released over 1100 records and while they were cheap and their quality was often poor, with a high surface noise, many are much prized by collectors today (as often as not because they sold in such small numbers).

Parmount stopped recording in 1932, like many Blues artists they too were a victim of the Depression.